Galaktion Alpaidze

Galaktion Yeliseyevich Alpaidze (, ; – 2 May 2006) was a Russian military officer of Georgian ethnicity in the former Soviet Army whose career saw military actions in the eastern front of the World War II.

Besides his career in the army, Alpaidze was a program manager in the former Soviet space program and was a director of the Plesetsk Cosmosdrome from 1963–1975 and was a recipient of the Hero of the Soviet Union, and 1977 laureate of the USSR State Prize.

Early life Alpaidze was born on 7 November 1916 to Georgian village peasants and raised in the settlement of Kursebi in Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire). He finished a seven-year educational curriculum and graduated from the Kutaisi Industrial College in 1937, primarily studying heat and energy development technology. For two years he worked as an electrician in a hydroelectric power plant before entering Red Army service in 1938. In 1940 Alpaidze graduated from the Tbilisi School of Artillery.

Post-war

From 1975 to 1992 Alpaizde worked as deputy director and chief designer in the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering, before he died in May 2006 at the age of 89. His body was interred at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery.

Legacy 11824 Alpaidze, a main belt asteroid discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh in 1982, was named after Lieutenant-General Galaktion Alpaidze.